NFL playoff games shut out visiting teams' fans

The Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks earned the right to play the NFL conference championship games at home.

And both teams are restricting ticket sales, making it more difficult for fans of the visiting Patriots and 49ers to buy them.

The Seahawks set limits on who can buy tickets to their games, limiting it to only the Pacific Northwest. San Francisco fans cried foul.

"It's important to show our support, to show how loud we can be up there as well," said Derrick Wienke of San Francisco.

Californians have to go to secondary markets like StubHub or the NFL ticket exchange, where prices have skyrocketed into the thousands.

The Broncos employed a similar measure, limiting tickets to purchasers in the Rocky Mountain region. New England fans expressed their displeasure as well.

The Seattle club said the restriction had nothing to do with overzealous fans.

"The reason wasn't to limit residents of California," according to a statement to CNN. "It was to stop large ticket brokerages from manipulating the on-sale purchases through Ticketmaster and inflating the price on the secondary market."

The Broncos also released a statement, which said in part: "After more than 96 percent of our season-ticket holders elected to purchase playoff tickets, we had an extremely limited inventory."

"We wanted to ensure our local fans had an opportunity to purchase tickets," the statement read.

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